


I Dreamed Last Night

by Pfain Ryder (Cat_Moon)



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-07-31 20:57:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20121547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat_Moon/pseuds/Pfain%20Ryder
Summary: Dream or reality?  And are they brave enough to find out?





	I Dreamed Last Night

**Author's Note:**

> Written 1994. Originally published in "No Holds Barred" #14

_Well I dreamed last night_

_You were calling my name_

_You were locked inside of your secrets_

_Calling my name_

_And you told me lost was the key_

_And you told me how you long to be free_

_That you don't know how_

_Oh let me show you now_

_Don't be afraid_

_Love's plans are made*_

His sleep was restless, plagued with a vague uneasiness born of endless nights filled with too little rest and too much worry. He tossed on the mattress, drifting between shadowy dreamland and twilight awareness. A gulf opened up between, filled with a cold, empty longing. Ethereal, nondescript, it tugged at his soul nonetheless. A need, calling to him, impossible to ignore as breathing. He embraced it...

And felt the trembling body in his arms. They instinctively tightened, not understanding any of it but knowing who it was, feeling the almost innocent warmth, smelling the scent he'd forgotten.

Sam..." His sleep-softened voice rose slightly at the end of the name, in inquiry.

"Hold me, Al," the dream vision pleaded, plastered to his side like a frightened child.

He obeyed, rocking the man in his arms with fatherly protectiveness. "What is it, kid?"

"I'm...I just...I'm so lonely sometimes. I wanna go home."

Familiar pain sliced through him. "If I could, I'd do anything to make that real. Anything."

"I know, Al," Sam said in a small voice.

All he could do was hold his friend, rocking him and murmuring words of comfort. And as he felt Sam relax, heard him breathing slow and steady into the pattern of sleep, he realized it was actually quite a lot.

XXX

Al opened his eyes without preamble, staring at the dark ceiling for a time unmeasured and unmarked. Time, fleeting, elusive, frightening. Even Sam, leaping through it at a whim, with a machine built through the epitome of human genius, had no control over time. Like the sea, no man was its master. The smart sailor respected that.

He'd often cursed Sam his impetuous foolhardiness.

Al rose from the bed, walking into the living room. Snapping on the light and setting it on low, his eyes rested first on the framed picture on the bookshelf. He and Sam, of course. Smiling for the camera, their arms draped casually around each other. Had they really been as inseparable as he remembered, or was it a trick of time's distortion, a phantom illusion? It was hard to remember, it had been so long...

"I want you home too, Sam," Al quietly told the hopeful face, feeling a tightness building in his throat. Swallowing it down with difficulty, he went to the cabinet for one single shot of whiskey...all he allowed himself these days, on those nights when he couldn't sleep. It burned going down, reminder of the constriction he was trying to ignore.

"You don't know how much..."

With one last, longing glance at the photo, he killed the light and went back to bed.

XXX

Another night, echo of the last. Sam came to him, seeking warmth and comfort from the biting winds of time. Again he held his most cherished friend, sheltering them both against the cruelties of a heartless father time.

This time however, Sam's breathing didn't even out into sleep, his trembling actually seemed to intensify.

"It's gonna be okay, Sam," Al promised, angry that his earlier contentment at being able to provide tangible help, comfort, had vanished into the more familiar, frustrated impotency. Why wasn't it ever enough?

Sam shook like a leaf at his words, pressing closer.

"Talk to me," Al bade, rubbing the broad back gently. "I'm here."

"Yes," Sam breathed. As his face buried in Al's neck, Al could feel the warm exhalation of words on his skin. "I need..." Fear and desperation and uncertainty laced the halting start.

"What do you need? I want to help..." The feeling welled up stronger, to take away Sam's pain was his only goal in life.

"You." The word was nearly inaudible, and for some obscure, unknown reason created goosebumps on Al's arms.

"I'm here," he repeated, continuing to rub Sam's back. Feeling the answer to the puzzle almost within reach.

Sam moved slightly, he thought he might have felt lips at his throat. Sam's head came up slowly, face mere centimeters from his own. Lips...

Lips grazing his, returning before his startled brain had fully comprehended the touch, lingering this time. Returning yet again, moving and opening against his.

The most surprising was that his responded, parting too. It was frighteningly sweet, terrifyingly real.

He pulled away.

"Al?" Sam's voice, heavy with something Al was reluctant to admit was yearning...passion.

"We...can't do this. It's wrong..." Surprised himself again, by being the one to reach out, draw them together again despite his words.

The feeling unleashed through time slammed into him, driving the breath from his lungs and screaming along every nerve-ending in his body. This had never happened before, he couldn't ever remember feeling these things for a woman, let alone another man.

And he panicked.

In his terror, he wrenched himself free of Sam's embrace; breaking the connection was like ripping their hearts out, brutal and abrupt.

A second later he was sitting bolt upright in bed, staring with wild eyes at the empty room. Sam, vanished into some shadowy netherworld like an insubstantial gust of wind.

Gulping lungfuls of air, feeling his heart thudding double-time in his chest, Al's willful mind insisted on lingering over those forbidden images, burned behind his eyelids.

Needing action, he jumped out of bed. His erection throbbing gently but incessantly, defying the fear and shame persistently, it was an aching reminder.

Al stripped off his pajamas hastily and stumbled into the shower, turning on the cold water until he nearly cried out from the pain of the frigid drops pelting him. Until he was numb, and his brain was frozen as well. Then he retrieved the liquor bottle, shaking hands almost spilling it as he filled up the largest tumbler in the house.

All the while, he kept repeating like a mantra:_ It was only a dream._ Dreams don't mean anything. _They don't mean anything..._

XXX

Sam sat up in bed, a cry of pain wrenched from his throat.

The sting of cool air on lips that had seconds ago been pressed hotly to another's was an accompaniment to the slap in the face of rejection.

He stared around in confusion, only belatedly realizing the cry was Al's name. _Only a dream... _ He wrapped shaking arms around his middle, trying to fend off the encroaching depression. It had felt so real... So good, so necessary... The pulsating hardness against his thigh seemed to underscore the truth of that, to mock his loneliness.

A few agonizing heartbeats of solitude, and he reached down and finished it.

XXX

Sam sought sleep's sweet promise, waiting for the arms of Morpheus to cradle him in loving arms, the promise of Al's embrace, Al's kiss, however brief and unreal, worth the risk of a repeat rejection.

He waited, suspended between hope and dread, floating in a void.

He waited in his dreamless prison, until dawn's gray light beckoned and it was time to face a stranger's day.

XXX

Morning dawned with a vengeance, the sunlight piercing Al's sensitive eyes like a dagger. Groaning, he levered himself out of bed and went to take a shower, hoping it would invigorate him.

Reluctant, indeed terrified to go to sleep, he'd prowled the apartment most of the night. Cleaning with a frenzy, to keep his mind off...the dream. To keep from thinking. To keep from facing the truth.

Admitting it was the hard part. Not that he'd kissed another man, not even that he'd enjoyed it. Not questions of his sexuality, nor ingrained aversions. It was admitting the depth of his love.

His incredible, impossible, decades-out-of-reach love.

By the time he'd collapsed from exhaustion, around four a.m., his sleep had been restless but empty of tormenting images.

Al had just wrapped a robe around himself and was toweling his hair when the phone rang. It jangled his nerves, frayed from lack of sleep and emotional stress.

"Calavicci," he barked into the receiver.

"Admiral Calavicci, it's Gooshie."

Al grunted in response.

"I think you'd better get down to the Control Room."

A lump of ice coalesced in his gut. "What's wrong?" he demanded in alarm, already throwing off the robe and groping for his clothes. Irrational panic pounded at him, his overriding thought that something had gone wrong and he'd never get a chance to tell Sam how he felt... Hadn't even made the conscious decision. So many missed chances, his whole life had been missed chances...

He became aware of Gooshie talking to him. "Admiral? Al! Don't panic, it's nothing, uh, catastrophic. You're just needed here, that's all."

The ice loosened, breaking into smaller, more manageable lumps. He wrinkled his brow in curiosity. "Okay, on my way."

XXX

The very last thing Al expected was to walk into the Control Room and see Sam standing there.

Shock paralyzed him. Sam, looking faintly expectant, very ecstatic.

"Al?"

His voice broke the spell. Al lunged forward, grabbing Sam up in an embrace that for all its exuberance, couldn't begin to convey all he was feeling at that moment.

"I'm home," Sam said, his voice choked with emotion. He hung on much like the dream image, well beyond the point which should have become uncomfortable.

Gooshie's voice was a bridge back to reality. "I didn't mean to alarm you Admiral, but Doctor Beckett wanted to surprise you."

As they pulled apart, Al thought he felt Sam stiffen infinitesimally, clinging with a force for one microsecond before letting go and stepping back sheepishly.

"We have to tell the others the good news," Gooshie said, all but ignored by the two men who only had eyes for each other. "Organize that welcome home party we've been planning for years."

That last got Al's attention. "Yeah, later," he said, grabbing Sam's arm. "First, he gets checked out by the docs."

Sam grimaced, but with Al's firm grasp unrelenting, he followed.

XXX

Al glanced at the clock. It had been exactly ten hours, seventeen minutes, and fifty seconds since Sam had leaped home. After being poked, prodded, invaded for hours, Sam was exhausted. So was Al. But Sam had insisted on spending his first night home at his on-site rooms rather than in the sick bay, and Al couldn't bring himself to leave.

Instead, he lay on the couch, listening for the quiet breathing, every little bed-spring squeak, each movement from the man in the next room. Sleep should have come easier, but it didn't. His body was exhausted beyond endurance, but his mind refused to shut down. Now that the incredible euphoria of Sam's homecoming had worn slightly, he was faced with heavy decisions. The moment, hauntingly clear, when he'd thought Sam would never know...

Now that Sam was home, Al was afraid to speak. Kept his peace through a light dinner and easy conversation, reasoning that Sam needed time to adjust to being home before being hit with something of this magnitude. Sam wasn't ready.

More likely, _he_ wasn't ready.

Al had no idea how Sam would react. He knew his friend didn't have a judgmental bone in his body...but that was where the knowledge ended. His mind simply refused to speculate beyond that.

A sound attracted his attention. _Sam..._

Al hesitated, reluctant to enter the dark sanctum. Another moan from Sam, louder, spurred him into action. He felt shame, that this inconsequential problem would cause him to hesitate to go to his friend's aide.

He approached the bed, hand going out tentatively to Sam's bare shoulder. A tingle shot through his arm. Only the force of his resolve kept him from pulling away.

At the touch, Sam turned towards him. Al couldn't ignore the troubled face and small cry. He carefully eased onto the bed and slid his arm around Sam, giving him a little shake.

"Sam, hey..."

Al was unprepared for the reaction. He was suddenly enveloped in strong arms, Sam's face burrowing into his neck, shaking body pressing close.

His mind, panicked, realized his dream was being played out for real.

"Al..." Sam cried softly, still asleep, in such a plaintive tone that Al wrapped his arms around the warm body. Though words wouldn't come, he vowed not to turn away this time, no matter what.

Sam's embrace tightened -- then abruptly loosened. He pulled back, his eyes cloudy, then clearing. His face reflected embarrassment.

"I--I'm sorry," Sam mumbled, moving to sit up against the headboard, his arms wrapped around his knees. Al mourned the loss of contact. "Bad dream." The explanation had a phony ring to it.

"What was it about?" Al asked quietly, sliding up to sit beside his friend.

Sam stared straight ahead for a time, silent. Al knew he was thinking, mind wrestling with private demons.

"It wasn't..." Sam began haltingly, took a deep breath, then continued. "...I was scared, alone... Promise me it won't change how you feel about me," he blurted out.

"I'm your best friend, Sam. You can tell me anything, you know that."

"Promise," he whispered.

"I promise," Al vowed solemnly.

Skeptical, yet willing, desperate to believe the words, Sam's tone changed, becoming almost mechanical. "It started two nights ago. I dreamt you were there, holding me. I was upset and you held me."

A jolt shot through Al at Sam's words, impossible conclusion coming to the forefront of his mind.

"Told me you'd do anything, to bring me home. Then the next night I dreamt you were there again. You asked me to tell you what was wrong, that you'd...wanted to help. Asked me what I needed..."

The words unfolded, carrying Al back to that dream. Impossible, but true. Al filled in the rest, heart pounding. "You said _me_. I told you I was here, and you...we...kissed."

Sam's head whipped around, his eyes wide in the darkness. "How?" he breathed.

Al closed his own eyes briefly. "I had the same dream."

"You..." Sam paused, took a breath. "You turned away from me. Said we couldn't--"

"No!" Al denied the truth vehemently. Then softened his voice. "I was scared, that's all. You took me by surprise."

"What were you afraid of?" Sam asked, his voice not quite convincing either of them that the answer wasn't more important than life.

It was now or never. Al instinctively knew that. The moment of truth.

_Truth..._

"Of...my love for you."

An in-drawn hiss of breath from Sam. "Love is nothing to be afraid of," he finally said, his voice hopeful, yet afraid to hope.

"It is where I come from," Al said, unable to keep the derision from his tone.

"I could show you a different way of loving," Sam whispered, bolder now.

Al shivered at Sam's words. To combat it, he again fell back on his protection: meaningless words. "You could show me, huh?" he teased with raised eyebrows, harking to Sam's reputation as a prude.

Sam lowered his head in embarrassment. "We could learn together," he murmured shyly.

Al considered this. Him teaching Sam, sharing with him all the finer points of love-making, while Sam taught him that love could be forever. A better deal, he'd never had.

He leaned forward, to begin turning their dream into reality.

**the end**

11/9/94

**Author's Note:**

> * "I Dreamed Last Night" from Justin Hayward and John Lodge -- Blue Jays, released March 1975. Written by Hayward. Re-released on the Moody Blues compilation "Time Traveller, 1994.


End file.
